R. Crumb's Short History (and future) of America

In 1979, Robert Crumb created "A Short History of America," depicting the rise of the urban landscape from the wilderness. The art first ran in the Whole Earth Catalog's offspring CoEvolution Quarterly. The animation of the original black and white artwork seen above is from the movie Crumb. Several years later, Crumb added three new panels showing possible future scenarios: The Fun Future (above), Ecological Disaster (above), and The Ecotopian Solution. You can purchase a color poster of the full 15 panel version from Steve Krupp's Curio Shoppe. (Thanks, Jason Tester!)

12 Responses to “R. Crumb's Short History (and future) of America”

I like the African American woman waving to the Jesusbearded hippie in white with the red wagon at the picture’s bottom left: eloquent refutation of all that “Crumb’s a racist” nonsense from a month or so back….

I somehow found “Short History” deeply inspirational when I first saw it a decade ago at a friend’s house… I enjoy studying “then and now” historical photo-comparisons, and all the small details of change portrayed in Crumb’s sequence, from the focus to the pace, from the growth to the decay, inspired hours of pondering how and why the changes happened, what they represented, how they were perceived at the time, and what we’re embracing now that we’ll regret in the future.